Last day on the Trail

 Another blue sky day, but very chilly air when Roxy and me went for our morning walk.  It looked promising for a good day out on the trail.

But first we had to pack up everything, load up Rosie, put Hennie on the rack and we said goodbye to Esk and drove north to Toogoolawah.

Last time when I rode the trail in 2017, the section between Moore and Toogoolawah wasn't opened so I had to bump through paddocks and then ride along the back roads.

So I thought I'd park at the Info centre there and ride 20km up towards Moore and back, which should get at least one tunnel to ride through.

And Plan A worked fine!  It didn't take long to drive the 18km and we were soon bumpy over the grassy track heading out of Toogoolawah.  The surface was nice fine gravel and so much smoother to ride up and there were even cemented causeways, which meant a smoother ride for both Roxy and me.  There were still a few of the dreaded grids to bump over - I know Roxy hates these as I get that look from her.  

The first part was through open cattle country - a couple of lone old gum trees in open paddocks, some empty or with small groups of various breeds of cattle.  I find this type of country so dismal as the creek gullies are so erodes and the road sides as full of weeds and prickles.  Lantana was taking over places and generally examples on environmental damage in any direction you care to look.  But at least the cockies can't complain as the dams had plenty of water and grass was long.  

There were a couple of places where the cattle were lounging along the trail and only slowly moved out of the way at the last moment.  I saw 3 cattle on the outside of their fence making the most of the shade from 3 trees as there wasn't much shade left in their paddock.  but enough of my whinging about the lack of good farming practices!

I did see a large flock of double-bar finches that always makes me happy and there were little family groups of red-back wrens to brighten the trail.  At one section about 5 or 6 pardalotes flew out of a bank of red earth and at another place where we stopped to read about the history of the Milk Train bridge, about half a dozen quail sprang up from the grass and surprised us!  I spotted a brightly coloured male Rufous Whistler singing in a gum tree and on another occasion I heard a pied butcherbird singing a version of their song I hadn't heard before.  But I didn't see any unusual or new birds along this trail.  Think I have to go much further west to find birds that I haven't seen before.

We got to Harelin just before lunch time and as I was planning on 20km out, we still had another 6 km to go, so on past the school we went.  There were a couple of really steep creek crossings and a hill or 2 to climb, but eventually we came to the main road crossing, so in a break between trucks and cars, we dashed across and rode on for half a km to clock up the 20km.  It was then that I noticed this rather threatening bank of blue black clouds looming up from the west.  Dang!!!  what does this mean?  

So we headed back to Harelin for a sandwich and a fruit juice before pedalling back to Toogoolawah.  The beauty of riding from north to south is the gentle slope that is not evident on the way up, but so nice to be able to crank things and glide back to the car.  

After a snack of an ice-cream, it was time drive back to Brisbane and just for a change I took the Mt Beppo road which looped around the other side of the dam back to Fernvale, then past Ipswich back into the city.  

so a rough pedal and one washed out day - meant a slightly smaller tour than planned, but it was nice to just riding out and about.  But I have decided that mountain bike trails are not my thing and I think Roxy would agree.

here's some photos from our last day on the trail...